Five's A Crowd (6 page)

He looked at her for long moments, moments during which she was grateful the massage table was there to support her suddenly shaky legs. “Can’t do it, Taylor. Not yet. Newsome let everyone know your occupation, remember? If we tell the truth now, the
whole world will be jumping down our throats, knowing I was trying to hide this injury. Damn Sid and his big ideas!” He dropped his head into his hands, stabbing his fingers through his dark hair. “Why do I feel like we’re in a bad sitcom?”

“Because we are, I suppose,” Taylor told him sympathetically, forgetting for a moment just how angry she should be with him. “However, if you think we have to keep up this charade until the beginning of August, you’d better have a small talk with Thelma. She’s not buying a word of the story Sid put out to the press. She said, and I quote, “I know how many beds I’m making up each morning.’“

“Beds? What do beds have to do with—oh.” Holden grinned. “And I thought our dear, sweet Mrs. Helper was a proper chain-smoking old lady who wouldn’t have such thoughts.”

“She watches daytime soaps, Holden,” Taylor replied, feeling her own mood beginning to lighten. “There’s
nothing
Thelma doesn’t think about. Oh, and she wants a raise, retroactive to her first day on the job. She said Sam would expect her to ask for one, and she wants the money for some new clothing and to get her hair done, just in case the cameras come back. So how does it feel to be blackmailed by one of the senior set?”

And that, Taylor would remember later, was probably the moment she fell unwittingly, carelessly, unreservedly in love with Holden Masters. Because he
listened to what she had to say about Thelma and then collapsed against the back of the couch, his long, straight legs splayed out in front of him, and laughed until tears rolled down his face.

H
OLDEN WAS SITTING
on the rooftop deck looking up at the stars, listening to the waves crashing on the beach a half block away—and wondering how a nice guy like him ever got caught up in a mess like this—when Woody found him around ten o’clock that night.

His stepbrother looked like a character out of some cartoon, only his whiter-than-white teeth, blond-streaked hair, the whites of his eyes and the glowing green face of his wristwatch visible in the pale light coming from the street lamp as he sat down on the cool roof, his legs crossed, his elbows on his knees. “Had yourself a real beaut of a day, didn’t you? Tiff and I just got home—she wouldn’t leave the arcade until she beat my score on this great simulated racecourse—but we met Thelma on her way home to feed Killer. Man, is she ever on a roll—talking a mile a minute, even giving instant replays of the big hit. Sam boxed in the navy, you know. We really missed the fun, didn’t we?”

“Be happy, Woody,” Holden told him, lifting a lit cigar to his mouth and clamping it between his teeth. He only smoked cigars, only occasionally and only in the off-season, but this seemed like a good time for
indulging in some sort of vice. At least it kept him from going down to Taylor’s room and making a total ass out of himself—as if he could possibly top this afternoon’s performance. “You may even want to have a T-shirt made up, saying, ‘I survived the Holden Masters punch-out.’ Although you might want to head back downstairs pretty soon and catch the news, as I’m pretty sure this is one of those ‘film at eleven’ stories.”

“That’s okay. When you’ve seen as many clips of old Peter flinging guitars and fists as I have, you get sorta jaded, you know? Tiff’s in heaven, by the way. She’s downstairs with Taylor, talking wedding gowns. Seems she saw a picture of some dame who wore a flesh-colored skintight leather leotard under a big white net cage and thinks Taylor would look great in it. I don’t think Taylor was impressed. You know, I thought there was something going on between you two. I mean, all that time alone on the beach and with you on the massage table?”

“We run on the beach every day to keep my legs in shape, and I’m on that massage table to get my muscles loose.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. So when’s the wedding? You think Peter and the guys will play at the reception? Man, you’re going to have to rent Madison Square Garden for all the people and press.”

“There isn’t going to be—” Holden began, then quickly shut his mouth. Woody was a good kid, but
a secret was no safer with him than it would be with Tiffany or Rich Newsome. “That is, Taylor and I don’t want a big show, Woody. We want to keep it private, you know. Maybe even fly to Vegas some weekend and do it there. So don’t go planning anything, all right? And for God’s sake, tell Tiffany to take a breath and step back. Hasn’t she been through enough weddings with Daddykins and Maw-maw to have lost the enthusiasm for another one?”

Woody shrugged his shoulders, then pulled a stick of beef jerky out of his shorts pocket and began gnawing on it. “There’s something fishy here, Holden,” he said after a moment, causing his stepbrother to look at him warily. “I mean, aren’t you supposed to be all happy and sappy? I mean, like you just got engaged. And where’s the ring? Peter gave the child bride a three-carat diamond she could use as a paperweight. It’s not like you to be a cheapskate, Holden. Or was this just so quick you didn’t have time to do it right?”

A ring.
Holden shut his eyes, feeling the six-story drop just in front of his make-it-up-as-you-go-along plan becoming more like he was about to take a swan dive off the Empire State Building. He hadn’t thought about a ring. He hadn’t thought about much of anything, when you got right down to it, other than how good Taylor had felt in his arms after two weeks of the most incredible physical attraction he’d ever encountered,
how right. And how he could ever possibly get her back there again without leading her to believe this mock engagement might actually have a future. Which it didn’t, of course.

Because he was not, never was, never would be the marrying kind, not with the evidence of Peter’s and Miranda’s combined track records to scare him off the idea. Not that marrying Taylor Angel was even within the realm of possibility, even if he did decide to settle down one day—at least a decade from now—succumbing to some as yet unfelt need for a couple of kids of his own.

But he’d bet she’d make great kids if they were anything like their mother.

Now cut that out!
he screamed silently, nearly biting the end off his two-dollar cigar.

All right. So Taylor was beautiful. And funny. And intelligent. And gutsy. And not a bit afraid of or impressed by him, his reputation or his money. That didn’t mean anything. Wanting her in his bed meant something—but that something wasn’t love. It was desire, pure and simple. The gut-wrenching pain he’d unexpectedly felt earlier, when she suggested that they put an end to the sham and she leave Ocean City, leave him—well, that had just been some stupid aberration, a fleeting fear that he’d have to deal with explaining her departure to the press.

That’s all.

Nothing more.

Taylor Angel was no more than a fairly enjoyable moment in time, a temporary attraction he’d overcome the minute he was back in circulation, a beautiful pain in the neck who used a little Yanni, a little scented oil, a little blood-heating massage to drive him out of his mind, then filling that same mind with thoughts that would make even Thelma Helper blush.

“So? You getting her a ring or what?” Woody persisted when his stepbrother didn’t answer him.

“Yeah, Woody. I’ll get her a ring,” Holden said fatalistically, making up his mind. “My cover’s blown anyway, so I guess we can all drive up to Atlantic City tomorrow. We’re bound to find a suitable paperweight in one of the casino jewelry stores.”

“The casinos! All right!” Woody leaped to his feet “Of course, Tiffany isn’t old enough to get in to gamble, you know. But she’ll want to go to the shops. Then we can have dinner at one of the steak houses—they do have steak houses, don’t they? Man, you know what, Holden? This is gonna be neat. Really neat. Taylor’s so, like, well,
normal—
not like Peter’s wives. I don’t think Tiff and I really ever had that. We can actually do things together with Taylor—play gin, do jigsaw puzzles, eat dinner together, talk about stuff. Just like a real family, you know?”

Holden took a deep pull on his cigar, blew out a thin stream of blue smoke. “Yeah, Woody, just like
a real family.” He closed his eyes on Woody’s youthful, hopeful smile, deciding he had a problem on hishands. Yeah. He had a
real
problem….

D
AWN OF THE DAY AFTER
her “engagement” announcement arrived—baffling Taylor, who felt sure the world would come to a merciful end sometime during the night—and she dragged herself out of bed for her morning run, hoping to leave before Holden could join her.

Her luck, which hadn’t been good, definitely hadn’t improved overnight.

“You ready?” Holden asked easily, doing some muscle stretches against one of the porch poles as she closed the door to the condo and just before she could breathe a sigh of relief at getting out of the house without running into anyone.

She looked at him in the yellow glow from the porch light, for the sun had yet to break over the water and erase the gray of dawn, his palms pressed against the pillar. He had his left knee bent, his right leg stuck out behind him, giving his Achilles tendon full extension—and giving her a truly remarkable view of his white-running-shorts-clad rear end. The man was a near god. Perfect form. Perfect muscular delineation—not too “stringy,” not too musclebound.
Perfect tan. Perfect teeth. Perfect hair. Perfect face.

Perfectly infuriating.

“Aren’t you afraid some reporter is lurking in the hydrangeas?” she asked, voicing her own private fears aloud. She definitely did not like being in the public eye, at least not when she wasn’t prepared for the exposure.

“The sun isn’t up yet, Taylor,” he said, grinning at her. “They’re probably still all hanging upside down in their caves, sipping coffee through straws. Although one of our neighbors just jogged by a couple of minutes ago to say he saw us on television last night. Thinks I’m a lucky, lucky man—then had me sign his sneaker.”

Taylor sniffed as she began doing a few stretches of her own, never realizing that watching her body in motion could be as interesting to Holden as his exercises had been to her. “You are a lucky man. You’re still alive.”

“Now, now, be nice, Taylor,” Holden said as they walked down the path to the sidewalk, heading for the beach to start their run. “After all, you’re going to have to unclench those fists long enough for me to slip a ring on your finger.”

Taylor stumbled over a nonexistent bump in the sidewalk and nearly went sprawling before Holden caught her. This was going on too long, going to far—and she was going to put a stop to it, just as soon as
she figured out how. “There will be no ring,” she told him, suddenly breathless, not to mention nervous. “No ring, no engagement party, and definitely no flesh-colored leather wedding leotard. Or haven’t you heard that one yet?”

“Tiffany,” he said, rolling his eyes as they climbed over the path cut into the dunes and entered the wide, deserted beach area. “She’s got a vivid imagination.”

“She also has green hair, or so she promised before she went to bed last night. And another hole in her ear, courtesy of Honey Buns and his handy-dandy ear-piercing punch—he has his own, you understand. I like Tiffany, like her very much, but somebody has to sit on that kid—and soon.”

“Love Buns.”

Taylor looked at him quizzically as they neared the water’s edge, the rising sun painting a golden stripe from the horizon to the shore, turned toward the sky blue water tower in the distance and began to jog on the wet sand. “What?”

“Love
Buns,” Holden repeated. “You called Lance
Honey
Buns. But that’s all right. Anybody can make a mistake.”

“Lance
is a mistake,” Taylor groused, her ponytail slapping back and forth behind her as she lowered her head, ready to break into her first full-out run that would last a good two hundred yards. “But
then, I imagine she’s only following in her father’s footsteps. It’s a shame. Now, I’m out of here!”

H
OLDEN LET HER GET
a head start, because he could outrun her easily and because he enjoyed watching the way she moved—gracefully, like a young gazelle, all golden tan and honey hair, unaware or uncaring of her own beauty, her own attraction.

Then, feeling the need to burn up some excess energy, he slowly accelerated, running as if the entire Dallas Cowboys defense was after him, holding an imaginary ball to his chest with his left hand, his right arm held out straight. He zigzagged down the beach, not stopping until he crossed the width of the sand to collapse on the steps leading to the very beginning of the boardwalk.

Breathing heavily, and with his right shoulder aching—not that he’d tell Taylor that—he lowered his head to his bent knees and took in huge gulps of air, trying to slow his heartbeat.

“Show-off,” Taylor said a few moments later, collapsing beside him on the wooden steps.

“Show-off? What do you mean? I was just getting some of the kinks out.”

“Sure,” Taylor agreed facetiously. “And those three drooling women up there behind us, freezing their very visible buns off trying to impress you, had nothing to do with those moves you were putting on,
huh? I kept waiting for you to stiff-arm a sea gull, then spike the ball in the end zone.”

Holden tipped his head back and looked up at the boardwalk. Sure enough, there stood three very lovely, very young, bikini-clad ladies posing against the railing. They immediately called to him by name and waved to him.

Obviously, his presence in Ocean City had hit all the television stations, and the newspapers, as well.

“Son of a gun,” he said, waving back, knowing he
always
noticed beautiful women. “I didn’t even see them. Must be getting old.” And then he frowned.
Why hadn’t
he seen them?
Because you were too busy looking at Taylor Angel, that’s why,
he told himself.

“So,” he ventured swiftly, preferring not to investigate that particular thought any longer, “you think you’re up for a trip to Atlantic City? I know I could use a break. All exercise and no play makes Holden a dull boy, you know.”

“If I could believe that, I’d have you working out ten hours a day,” Taylor groused, bending down to rub at a sudden cramp in her calf.

“Here, let me help you,” Holden offered, dropping to his knees in the sand in front of her and taking her calf in both hands. “Push down with your heel while I rub toward your heart. It helps, honest.”

He began stroking her calf, his fingers skimming over the silky smoothness, his mind skipping over possibilities he’d be safer not supposing. He could
feel the cramp slowly beginning to leave the muscle and smiled up at Taylor.

“See? Told you it works, or did you think you were the only one who had a way with a muscle?” he teased.

His grin broadened as he saw the way Taylor was looking at him—the way her eyes looked all warm and soft for a moment before she pulled her leg free with a curt “Thanks” and started back up the beach toward the condo.

“Who’s going to Atlantic City?” she asked, keeping to a slow jog. “Tiffany isn’t old enough to gamble, you know, not that she’s going to be happy to hear that.”

“She’ll be happy enough buying out half the stores,” Holden told her, also content to keep to a slow jog. His heart rate was plenty high as it was, thank you, and his hands still tingled with awareness after massaging Taylor’s shapely calf.

Did she ever feel that way when she was working on him? No, she couldn’t. Nobody could feel the way he did and keep it a secret for long. Or not want to progress to the next level of attraction. “Amanda will keep her company,” he added, making up his mind to invite his old girlfriend along, probably for his own protection.

Taylor’s ponytail slapped against the side of her head as she turned to look at him. “Amanda Price is going with us?” she asked, sounding disappointed for
a moment before she shrugged. “Want to keep up the lover-boy image, I suppose. It figures. Just as long as I don’t go picking up some tabloid that has ‘Masters Engaged, Still Making Moves’ in three-inch head-lines. Mother and Dad would be
so
upset for their little girl.”

“You’re still mad, aren’t you?” Holden asked, knowing it was a stupid question—even if it was the same stupid question he’d been longing to ask her all morning. “You know I didn’t plan this, Taylor. It just—well, it just sort of
happened,
that’s all.”

“Open mouth, insert foot, huh, Holden?” Taylor questioned, shaking her head. “I guess I can only be glad Amanda didn’t discover you standing over Thelma’s lifeless body, or I’d be in jail by now. Or don’t you always let somebody else take the fall for you?”

Holden stopped dead on the sand, as did Taylor, for he had grabbed her by the elbow, swinging her around in front of him. “Now look, Taylor—” he began angrily, then let out his breath in a rush. “Damn it, you’re right. I screwed up. I screwed up big time. First, by listening to Sid—and I’m not blaming any of this on Sid, so don’t look at me that way, okay? I’m a big boy now, and I could have told Sid to forget the whole thing the moment he told me about his idiot scheme. I didn’t. I went along. And that’s my fault.”

“Where’s a microphone when you want one?” Taylor grumbled, scanning the nearly empty beach. “No cameras, no reporters. Damn. Maybe you’ll be willing to repeat that confession when Rich New-some shows up for a rematch? I mean, this should be recorded for posterity—Holden Masters admitting to doing something wrong. Something lamebrained, even. Dumb. Really,
really
stupid human trick. Yup, the great wonder man goofed, slipped up, royally stuck his foot in it—”

“Oh, shut up,” Holden breathed, pulling her hard against him, feeling her slim, spandex-clad body touching him knee to chest before he silenced her sarcastic teasing with his mouth.

She tasted of summer mornings, of salt, of sea air, of the good, clean sweat of healthful exercise. She tasted of sex, of want, of need—and he crushed her mouth against his, eased it open with his eager tongue, plunged the depths of her fueled by a need so strong, so startling, he shook with it.

He felt her arms slide around his back, hungrily kneading his muscles, fluidly running along his spine; felt her eager acquiescence as he slid one bare, muscled leg between hers, pushing against her, feeling her rubbing against him.

It was as if the world had blown apart, and they were the only two people spared—safe on a small, sandy island within a maelstrom of howling Winds and clapping thunder. She was everything he had
thought she’d be, everything he’d hoped from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.

And more.

So much more.

So much more that warning bells went off in his head and he found himself putting his hands on her shoulders, easing her away from him. He looked beyond her, to the path they’d taken to come down to the beach, and saw two newspaper photographers greedily snapping pictures.

“Good girl, Taylor. That ought to satisfy them for a while,” he commented as nonchalantly as he could, motioning toward their audience.

Taylor shook her head, obviously confused, still caught up in the moment, then turned and looked at the photographers—and back at Holden. “You
bastard,
“ she grated from between clenched teeth, her fingertips digging into his back.

He held her where she was, so that she wouldn’t run off, so that she wouldn’t hit him. “You agreed to go along with the sham, Taylor,” he reminded her, hating himself even as he protected himself from the shattering memory of her kiss, remembering that he had no plans to ever,
ever
fall for that age-old fantasy of believing in anything so transient as “true love,” which is what his mother had called each and every one of her “forever” marriages. “Relax, it won’t happen again.”

“And you can bet your Super Bowl ring on that one, Holden Masters,” Taylor told him angrily, roughly pulling free of his hold. “When do you plan to leave for the casinos? I might as well go along for the ride, because there’s no way in hell I’m touching you again today, therapy or no therapy.”

“We’ll go after lunch,” he told her quickly, before she could run off the beach without him, and fell in behind her as he jogged back to the condo, back to his room—where he lay down on his bed and spent fifteen minutes calling himself every rotten name Taylor had missed.

T
AYLOR ACTUALLY WENT
so far as to begin packing her luggage, intent on leaving Ocean City and Holden Masters far behind her, before she gave it up as a bad job and sat down on her bed, mumbling aloud, “How did a nice girl like you get mixed up in a mess like this?” just as Tiffany came into the room without knocking.

“I’m bummed,” the younger woman announced baldly, pouting as she lifted Taylor’s half-filled duffel from the bed, dropped it on the floor, then collapsed on her back on the mattress, looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, totally bummed. Holden says Lance can’t come with us. He says he’s weird.” Tiffany lifted her head an inch off the mattress—the head now framed by hair nearly the same shade as the exterior of the condo—and looked at Taylor, her eyes wide.

“Can you believe that?
Weird?
Lance is
not
weird. He wouldn’t think of, like, piercing his tongue, for one thing. Herbie did, though—and Daddykins never even said boo to him the night he came to one of our pool parties and got a nacho chip stuck in it.”

“He got a nacho chip stuck in the pool?” Taylor asked, grinning, then shook her head. Proper English, as well as sarcasm, were both totally wasted on Tiffany. “Anyway, that’s too bad, Tiff. But you can spend one day away from Lance, can’t you?”

The girl rolled her eyes. “Of
course
I can, Taylor, although he’ll be, like, totally lost without me. But if I pout, Holden will give me more money for the shops. Jeez, don’t you know
anything?”

“Apparently not,” Taylor said, pulling a sweatshirt out from beneath Tiffany’s sprawled body, folding it and replacing it in the open drawer. “Did you know Amanda Price is coming with us?” Now, why on earth did she mention that? Taylor shook her head, angry with herself. “Not that it matters, of course.”

Tiffany levered herself up on her elbows, an unholy grin splitting her deeply red painted mouth. “Oh-oh—trouble in paradise?
Already?
Well, relax. Holden is crazy about you. It’s just that he’s always nice to everyone and doesn’t want Amanda to feel left out.” She dropped back against the mattress, reas-suming her self-pitying, martyred pout. “Although he sure hasn’t been nice to Lance. Called him a
dork.” She pulled a face. “Yeah, right. Like anyone says
dork
anymore.”